Agreed. I never really heard of them before I started searching for a ~$200 interface. But I didnt have to look long, sems everyone agreed this was the best out there, plus it was reviewed as easy to set up, and works with Windows 7.
The clarity of tone that comes through is amazing. I didnt really notice anything at first different than my Lexicon Alpha tonewise, but after laying down some tracks for a couple songs I am going to the studio for, I realized how much growl it brought to life from my basses that the Lexicon just mudded up,
I did end up habing to use ASIO drivers. From what I understood, the included drivers were supposed to be 'great' and allow for direct through PC monitoring, and all that jazz. But I still had to use ASIO drivers since the built in drivers just weren't that great at the sample rate I wanted. It had some hiss/fuzz to the sound that isn't there with ASIO drivers. As far as ASIO goes, I was able to get 3-5ms latency with zero clicks. It can handle 1ms latency but clicks about 1 time every 30 seconds.
The only other issue I have, which I read about already, is that the head phone volume is too low for my liking. The max volume available is right at about my lowest point of comfortable listening when playing my bass. When tracking it ends up being lost when playing alongside music, so I have to reduce the volume on everything else so I can hear the bass, then re add the volume back to everything during playback, kind of a hassle. If I could run 1ms latency, I can add gain through the Recorging Orogram and hear my bass better that way, but like I mentioned above, 5ms isn't fast enough for through PC monitoring. A headphone amp would probably do me good since I track mainly at night when everyone is asleep so it my only option at the moment.
Still, I love it, it sounds great, makes me feel like my bass sounds better, and has included features like MIDI that I might use in the future, as well as some extra software like Live 8 Lite (I already have Full version) and Novation Bass Station and some other plug-ins.
